Five Products That Caught Our Eye at IBS

By

Robbie Whelan

Feb 13, 2012 4:53 pm ET

Robbie Whelan/The Wall Street Journal

Kohler’s Numi toilet: the singing, warming robot toilet you never knew you needed.

The National Association of Home Builders’ annual convention can resemble a big marketplace, with displays of the latest in faucets, solar panels, flooring and outdoor gas grills lining the aisles of the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando. There’s even a “model village” of homes outfitted with products from the various displays.

Here are five new products we took note of while wandering the floor last week at IBS 2012:

Kohler’s Numi toilets: For a cool $6,400, you can have a toilet that sings to you, warms your legs, washes your underside with multiple streams of water, and remembers your favorite settings for when you return. The Numi was introduced by Kohler last year as the companies “most advanced” commode. Other models made by Kohler range from $150 to about $1,000, but the Numi, which the company says was influenced by high-tech toilets from Asia, comes with a steep price tag because of all the bells and whistles. In addition to an iPod-ready stereo system (sound comes off speakers on the rear of the toilet), leg-warming porcelain, ground lighting and multiple bidet settings, the Numi is designed so that you never have to touch it.